


Birth of an Ice Bear

by TaraSoleil



Series: Ice Bear Has Many Secrets [5]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), MCU, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky is a little shit, Gen, Trolling like a boss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-12
Updated: 2015-12-12
Packaged: 2018-05-06 08:11:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5409515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaraSoleil/pseuds/TaraSoleil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of how an Ice Bear came to be.<br/>This is in no way profound.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Birth of an Ice Bear

**Author's Note:**

> I included a bit from the Civil War trailer, but being totally clueless on what sort of machinery Bucky's arm is clamped in I changed it to something I know: English Wheels. We're rewriting entire canons here, I think I can change something like that, too.

There were only two things in this world of which he was absolutely certain:  HYDRA was his enemy and Steve Rogers was a safe bet. With those two known factors as his only compass, he ran.

He wasn’t running from but to.

He was running to safety. He was running toward his enemy. He was running toward sanity and security and hope. He was running toward a ramshackle car maintenance shop in a sleepy little town in the middle of nowhere. It was a safe house, though safe from what he could only guess. Ten miles away a bank was on fire, the secure metal vault and the chair housed within melting to nothing in the heat of the acetylene-assisted blaze. It was the seventh secret HYDRA stronghold he had torched in as many months; June had been a banner month, during which he hit two bases, allowing him to take all of August to sit in contemplative silence in the northern Canadian wilderness and try to find who he had once been.

And who he had once been was a city boy.

The rugged expanses of uninhabited woods were torturous. The Asset preferred them, but he couldn’t stand the quiet, the solitude, the loneliness. _Loneliness_. It took him twenty-eight days with nothing but birds and various types of woodland rodents for company to be able to find that word.

The morning he woke up and was able to identify the feeling bringing agitation to his stomach was the morning he packed his bag and headed for the nearest train station, which of course he had the precise latitude and longitude of in his head. From there, he hit another HYDRA cell and began dropping clues to let Steve know that he was ready to be found. Four more bases, bunkers, cells and stronghold were destroyed before he found himself running toward the safe house in Nowheresville, Maine.

He couldn’t be sure Steve was getting his messages. If he was getting them, he couldn’t be sure that Steve understood. All he was sure of was that he was tired of running and that Steve was safe.

Morning would come soon, and he had to be hidden before it did. Even in Nowheresville, Maine, people had eyes and phones. Especially in Nowheresville, Maine, strange, unwashed men skulking through shadows were dubbed suspicious when nearby banks went up in flames. So he ran.

It took three days for them to find him. _Them_ , not him. Two voices, both men. One he knew to be Steve, though there was a tightness to it he didn’t remember hearing. Perhaps it was just because he was offering harsh whispers. Or perhaps it was because he had caused the man so much grief. He had shot him. Four times. And stabbed him. And beat his face bloody. So, yes, the hard edge to his voice was to be expected. The other man was not.

From his perch in the rafters, he could hear their quiet conversation, their footsteps as they moved with practiced quiet – amateurs.

“Are you even sure it’s him?” the man demanded.

Steve sounded exasperated, the way _he_ always had when he found Steve in the middle of a fight he had no hope of winning. “I’m sure.”

“Just sayin’, HYDRA can be pretty damn clever,” the man replied. “Maybe they dug into a file, found your secret old man codes from back in the day. This could be a trap.”

“One, I don’t have secret old man codes. Two, it’s not a trap. Three, stop asking already.”

“I’m just—“

“Sam!” Steve growled, frustration raising the volume of his voice, making him shift in agitation and uncertainty up in his perch. The movement did not go unnoticed.

Steve might be a safe bet, but he wasn’t an easy mark. His reflexed were quick, and the shield was flying at the slight movement. He dodged it easily, falling to the floor and rolling to stand, running from the open bay to the protected clutter of the workshop.

“Steve!” he heard the man named Sam call as the whistle of the shield came closer. He slid on the sandy concrete to dodge it, gripping the massive English wheel to tighten his turn. He thought it was a spontaneous decision, but Steve had seen it, had planned for it. The shield hadn’t been aimed at him at all, but at the machinery. It hit against one of the starburst rods of the kickwheel, which spun with so much velocity that it sent the anvil wheel rocketing up, nearly crushing his arm under what felt like a thousand pounds of pressure at the very least.

He didn’t scream.

The information the arm sent to his brain never registered as pain, not even when it was damage he was receiving.

Steve was inching closer, still slightly crouched. The other one, Sam, followed, whispering warnings.

He kept his face carefully neutral, unsure what to make of this Sam or even of Steve.

“Cap—“

“It’s fine,” Steve insisted, turning from the other one. He eyed him, worry and hope clear on his face. It had been a long time since anyone showed him any emotion. Was it 1962? Or 1950? He couldn’t remember the mission when the young scientist has spoken to him like a human and not as the Asset. It had set him to remembering, to fighting back. They made him kill that scientist as a lesson to the others.

Steve was speaking again, breaking him from the memory. “Buck.”

He looked at him, face unreadable. That scientist’s death had taught more than just the other lab workers to remain impassive. He had taken the lesson to heart, as well. He showed no emotion to them, so he wouldn’t have to take any more lives than was necessary.

“Do you remember me?”

Decades of hard lessons were hard to break. Old habits. Hard to kill. Slow to die. Like Steve. Like him.

Two things he knew: HYDRA was the enemy and Steve was a safe place.

“Your mother’s name was Sarah,” he said, voice hard and coarse from lack of use. He looked up at the man, taller than him now, but he wasn’t always. There was a time he was just a scrawny nobody too stupid to back down from guys twice his size, always letting his mouth get him into fights he had to be rescued from. “You used to wear newspapers in your shoes.”

The other one snorted, his hand flying up to cover his mouth. “You really did that?”

Steve’s smile was slow in coming, but once it came it lit up his face. “Yeah. Bucky, are you… you?”

“Who am I?” he wondered. He didn’t feel like Bucky, but he didn’t feel like the Asset anymore. Were those his only two options?

That hard-won smile fell. “Bucky, it’s not safe. There are too many HYDRA still out here. We need to get you somewhere safe.”

“Somewhere safe,” he repeated vacantly. No place was safe. Steve was the only safe place. Wherever he wanted to take him, if Steve was going to be there, then it would be safe.

He repeated the words again, with conviction. Steve took it as an agreement.

“Are you planning on shooting me?” he asked dryly, indicating the gun still clutched in his right hand.

“No.”

“Okay,” he said, kicking the starburst wheel and alleviating the pressure on his arm.

He was careful not to move too quickly. Steve seemed to trust him, but the other one might take a sudden movement as a threat. If a gun were drawn on him, he couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t shoot back on instinct alone. It was consideration wasted, he found, as the man sighed.

Sam looked away, all but turned his back on him. “We’re going to have to move faster than this. Bad guys aren’t too far behind.”

“He’s right,” Steve said, collecting his shield and slapping Bucky on the back. “Let’s go. We can be there before lunch.”

“Is it lasagna day?” Sam questioned hopefully.

“It’s always lasagna day for you.”

The quick retort brought back a rush of memories. Twenty-five years of banter and harmless put-downs, shoves and laughter. It used to come so easily. Now… now, he didn’t even want to smile in front of anyone, afraid it would mean their death at his hands, afraid it would mean they would betray him to the chair again.

He was secreted into the back of an SUV with windows so darkly tinted the sunrise barely showed through the glass, and still Steve insisted he wear a baseball cap, sunglasses, a hood and a false moustache.

“You’re kidding me with the fake ‘stache, right?” Sam demanded as he watched Bucky put on each piece of the disguise. “If they’re close enough to see a ‘stache, then they are clearly out to kill us. Lose the ‘stache, man.”

“Lost,” he said and dropped the bit of sticky fur back into the bag. He did put on the sunglasses, though.

“Yeah, I’ll say you are,” he commented under his breath, earning a slap on the arm from the driver.

“Dude, remember we aren’t all enhanced,” the man griped.

“I will when you stop insulting Buck.”

“Not insulted,” he commented from the back.

“See, dude’s fine… ish,” Sam offered.

Steve grumbled as he always used to when annoyed. How often had be prodded him into making that noise? The smile wanted to break out on his face, but he held it back. The rest of the seven-hour drive went about as well. Then they arrived at Avengers Tower, and things did not improve.

The SUV pulled to a stop in a subterranean parking garage with barely enough lights for even his enhanced eyes to make out the shapes of the other cars parked nearby. He peered into the darkness, hunting for movement and finding none. Steve ushered him purposefully between the vehicles presumably toward a means of reaching the surface; he barely spoke, and, when he did, his words were clipped and voice hushed.

It was obvious that he was an unwelcome guest here. He knew why.

Since breaking with his handlers, he had kept up with the news by whatever means he had available to him. He knew about Tony Stark and his Avengers, knew about Howard Stark. He had met the man, disliked him on principal but secretly thought he was a good guy. A prick, but a good guy. He had met him again years after everyone thought he was dead, laid in wait for him, shot out his tires and sent his car over a sharp turn in the rocky hills not too far from his home. He had finished the job, completed the mission, killed a friend, orphaned his son. That son would not be pleased to know he was here, but Steve called this a safe place, a place with friends.

“Alright, Buck,” Steve sighed as the elevator rose. He paused as if unsure of himself. “I haven’t told anyone that we found you. They know I’ve been looking. Most… most thought it was a waste of time, that you really were dead or didn’t want to be found. It’s going to take some time to get everyone used to the idea of you.”

He said nothing in reply.

Steve took his silence as disappointment. “I know, I’m sorry. I’m making it seem like you’re a dirty secret I’m trying to hide, but there are a lot of people who won’t be very happy you’re still alive.”

“Like me.” The words echoed through the tiny space, a man’s synthesized voice made tinny and loud by the speakers.

For the first time in days, Bucky braced for a real fight. His hand slid behind his back and gripped the handle of the gun tucked into his pants. His eyes surveyed the small space, seeking out a means of tactical advantage (there was none).

“Tony,” Steve groaned.

“My building, Cap. You honestly think I wouldn’t know you were sneaking your boyfriend in?” the man questioned, his voice coming first from the speakers then from his own mouth as the doors flew open.

The man blocking the doorway looked far too much like Howard Stark; just the sight of him brought back an anachronistic string of memories in which he shot Howard as he sat drinking beers with him while coordinating against the Nazis. He managed to keep from showing his distress, his face as impassive and emotionless as it was while they drove.

A hand slid down his moustache and down to his beard as Stark fought for the appearance of calm, just as Howard used to do. He looked to Sam, “You’re new to the gang, Icarus, so I’m going to let you slide.”

Icarus. He remembered the name. The boy who had stolen his father’s wings and flown too close to the sun. Lofty aspirations. Hard truths about ones abilities and limitations. It was a belittling nickname, and one that had clearly been used before if the look Sam wore meant anything at all.

Stark continued to Steve, as if Sam’s annoyance meant nothing. “Look, I realize you may have missed a few things, Capsicle, but that is not someone I want in my house.”

Again, he considered the name the man was throwing out. It was again something of an insult.

He remembered Howard, his genius and general disregard for the feelings of others. Unlike his son, Howard never belittled those around him. When he meant to insult, he did it properly and with the person knowing full well it was being done. This childish passive-aggressive means of knocking others down would not have sat well with him. While they had not always seen eye-to-eye, on this he had to agree with Howard.

“He was a prisoner of war, brainwashed and abused. He isn’t that weapon anymore,” Steve insisted, moving to stand between him and Stark.

“Are you sure?” Stark questioned, looking around the man’s sizeable shoulder to eye him. “Have you seen him? He’s got the emotional range of the arctic. I know you think he’s your snuggly little teddy bear, but he’s clearly not all there.”

“Don’t talk about Bucky like that,” Steve warned.

“Have you talked to him?” he demanded. “Hey, Ice Bear, what’s up? Any plans to murder anyone today?”

He took a moment to process the words being thrown at him, heard the underlying insult and understandable anger. He could answer like a normal person, tell the man what he needed to hear to feel safe and allow him to stay.

He _could_.

But he wouldn’t.

“Ice Bear,” Bucky said, maintaining the calm voice he had used on Steve earlier to subtly assure him that he meant no harm. “Ice Bear has no plans to commit murder. Ice Bear wants only to eat lasagna and be safe.”

The malicious twist of Stark’s smirk fell as did the smirk itself. A furrow grew between his brows as he waited for him to speak, maybe to laugh or call it the joke it was. When he said no more, Stark cleared his throat nervously, “Ah, so… _Ice Bear_ , you know me?”

“You are Tony Stark, son of Howard Stark.”

“And what did you do to old Howie?”

“He didn’t—“ Steve began, but Bucky spoke over him.

“HYDRA killed Howard Stark. Ice Bear was the gun they shot.”

Stark frowned as he stepped into the elevator, studying him more thoroughly. “You really are a blanket, basket and bowl of potato salad short of being a picnic, aren’t you?”

“Ice Bear wouldn’t know. Ice Bear never learned to picnic.”

“Sad little life you lead,” he mumbled.

“Ice Bear agrees.”

Stark sighed. “If he’s going to stay, he’s got to be of some use. What can he tell us about HYDRA?”

“I haven’t asked,” Steve said through gritted teeth.

“Ice Bear has many secrets. Mostly about HYDRA,” Bucky said, moving slowly to pull a USB drive from his pocket. “Ice Bear throws nothing away.”

He threw the tiny stick to Stark, watching as the man considered it and then him. “He can stay for now. But he’s your responsibility. You walk him. You feed him. If he starts clawing up the curtains, he goes. Understand?”

“Ice Bear will not harm the curtains,” Bucky promised in a dull monotone.

Stark turned and walked from the elevator, offering one last worried glance over his shoulder before speaking a command that had the doors closing and the car moving upward once more.

“Bucky?” Steve questioned.

“Ice Bear wants lasagna.”

“Shit.”

“No, Ice Bear did that before he got in the car.”

**Author's Note:**

> In our next installment, Ice Bear will gain a not-so-secret admirer.  
> Tune in next time! Same Ice Bear time! Same Ice Bear channel! (na na na ICE BEAR!!)


End file.
